


détente

by bropunzeling



Category: Alex Stern - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/M, Post-Book 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:41:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bropunzeling/pseuds/bropunzeling
Summary: It’s July, and Alex and Darlington are the only ones in the house, rattling around Il Bastone like marbles in a jar.
Relationships: Darlington/Alex Stern
Comments: 4
Kudos: 61





	détente

**Author's Note:**

> I am a gremlin and the manuscript party awoke something in me. Takes place post book 2 and will in all likelihood be jossed immediately. All mistakes are either due to (a) the fact that my library copy was returned two weeks ago, taking the appendices with it or (b) it sounded good.

It’s July, and Alex and Darlington are the only ones in the house.

They haven’t been left alone together much after they pulled Darlington out of – well, whatever the term is for where he went, beyond the Veil but also somewhere else within that. For weeks she’s had Dawes and Michelle as barriers, talking about theses and university politics and terrible literary fiction and the newest ridiculous pop song, always sweeping one of them out of a room before the other one came in. After three days, Alex realized it was deliberate. Dawes and Michelle didn’t know what would happen if they were left alone, and clearly, they didn’t want to find out, like scientists experimenting with a particularly unstable radioactive material.

But then Dawes went to stay with her sister for the summer, and Michelle went back to New York to deal with some sort of library emergency, not that Alex has figured out what that would entail besides someone reshelving a precious manuscript under the wrong Dewey decimal number, and now it’s just her and Darlington, rattling around Il Bastone like marbles in a jar.

Neither of them have left the house in weeks. Darlington won’t, hasn’t stepped past Il Bastone’s wards since he’s been inside them, and Dawes made Alex promise not to leave him alone in there, so here they are.

Despite the lack of communication, they’ve settled on a routine. Darlington claimed the second-floor study for his own early on, and Alex has respected that, generally. She can do her summer not-quite-remedial coursework on the ground level, working through Homer and Hawthorne and god knows what other old dead white men Professor Jenkins can find to torture her with. Asides from occasionally crossing paths in the kitchen on the rare occasion that he’s come downstairs, they’ve been locked in their separate orbits, never crossing.

However, her copy of _The Faerie Queene_ is on the floor of Darlington’s study, where she’d thrown it sometime last fall, and she needs it, considering her essay is due in approximately twenty hours, more or less. On the whole, she thinks intruding on Darlington’s space will be forgiven when he realizes her grades are at stake.

Alex knocks on the study door, waits for a response. When she doesn’t get one, she slips inside, scanning the room as she goes. She thinks she’d left her copy near the small desk, but Darlington may have moved it.

She doesn’t find the Spenser. She does find Darlington, asleep in one of the wingback chairs. From this angle he looks almost – normal. Vulnerable, even. For the first time since he came back, he doesn’t look tense.

Then her foot hits one of the creakier floorboards – fucking old houses – and Darlington startles. Glancing around, he catches Alex’s gaze. She forgot how dark his eyes are now, pupils bleeding into iris bleeding into the whites. _Demon eyes_ , Michelle had whispered when they’d found him, looking at him with an expression that was sick and sad and scared.

Hey,” she says, voice cracking, which is fucking pathetic, but she has to soldier on. “I knocked.”

“Oh,” Darlington replies, but he doesn’t relax.

Alex takes one step towards the chair, hands out, palms up. She thinks that’s how you’re supposed to calm startled horses, or at least it sounds like what you would do. “I’m looking for my copy of Spenser. I think it’s over there.”

“Right,” Darlington says. “I – okay.”

“Okay,” Alex repeats. “Can I –“

“Yeah,” Darlington says, too fast. “Yes. Go ahead.”

Alex nods, heads towards the small desk. _The Faerie Queene_ is on the carpet, fallen in that way that’s certain to ruin the spine. Before-Darlington would have said something, probably even moved it to “preserve its structural integrity” or some shit. Now-Darlington doesn’t say anything, and the silence makes her stomach twist a little.

“Thanks,” Alex says. Her throat still feels dry. “I’ll go now.”

She’s almost out the door when Darlington says, voice rasping, “You don’t need my permission to come in here.”

Alex pauses. Swallows. “Okay,” she says, and carefully shuts the door behind her. It takes her almost an hour to concentrate enough to work on her essay.

-

The next day, when Alex sits down in the kitchen where she’s left her laptop open, cursor blinking on that _fucking_ essay, fuck Edmund Spenser with a rusty nail for being even worse the second time around, there’s a mug with coffee waiting next to it.

The coffee isn’t very good. She drinks it anyways.

-

A few days later, she gets her next assignment from Professor Jenkins – it starts with _Please read one of the following Shakespeare plays_ and only goes downhill from there – and groans.

After searching the rest of Il Bastone, she ends up back in front of Darlington’s study, wavering between knocking and not knocking. He said she didn’t need his permission, but she feels like she should have it anyways.

In the end, she knocks. Again, there’s no response.

This time, she finds Darlington staring out the window, not that there’s much to see. He doesn’t turn around when the door creaks.

“Hey,” she says. “Which shelf is the Shakespeare on?”

Darlington gestures towards one of the bookcases, but doesn’t turn around.

She takes her time choosing – there was no way she was doing one of the history plays, and she’s had enough of tragedies. Finally she finds a copy of _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ and turns to leave.

“Which one did you pick?” Darlington’s turned around, leaning against the small desk. His voice still sounds raspy, and it brings up questions Alex isn’t sure she wants to know the answer to.

Finally, she replies, “ _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_.”

Darlington makes a noise that it takes a second for her to realize is a laugh. “Staying on theme.”

“I guess,” she replies, shrugging. She finds herself staring again at his eyes. She tries to remember what color they were before. The longer they’ve been gone, the harder it is to recall.

“I think that part is permanent,” Darlington says, voice bitter, and she jumps.

“It’s – “ She stops, tries thinks of something to say. She wishes Darlington would say something. She’s not used to him not saying anything, has a hard time remembering what she can expect from Now-Darlington, as opposed to Before. Now-Darlington just watches her, and the expression makes her feel itchy, almost, like she can feel it physically against her skin. There’s something that’s the right thing to say, that will ease the bitterness twisting his mouth, but she doesn’t know if she knows it. She’s never been very good at that part.

In the end, the clock saves her, chiming the hour. “Well,” she says, waving the book at him, wishing she wasn’t a coward. “I’ll bring it back later.”

She feels his eyes pressing against her back all the way down the stairs.

-

“You could go outside, you know,” Alex says. She’s on the hunt for _The Tenant of Wildfell Hall_ , which she’s never fucking heard of. Of course Jenkins gives her the one Brontë that hasn’t had a BBC miniseries she can watch instead. Though she supposes she should be grateful it’s at least not another dead white man to contend with.

Darlington doesn’t answer her, which isn’t surprising. The few times she comes up here now, he’s spent in silence, glancing at a book she doesn’t recognize or staring out the window. He keeps the windows shut upstairs, which is almost stifling, and Alex is always a little grateful to escape to the coolness of the kitchen.

“It might be nice.” She knows he won’t go. He hasn’t left the wards of Il Bastone, not since they pulled him out, not since he could see what she’s always seen – the dead, hovering at the edges, gray-washed and grasping. “Actually experience weather and things. The sky’s been clear at night too.” Christ, she’s babbling now. She needs to find this book yesterday.

Darlington still doesn’t respond. He’s closer now than last time, not hovering on the opposite end of the room, but still keeping some distance. Alex still gets that itchy feeling when he looks at her – it’s not bad, exactly, but more like she can feel his attention against her skin, prickling at the edges of her awareness.

Finally, she finds _Wildfell Hall_ , on the very top shelf. She wouldn’t consider herself short, but it’s a reach to grab it, and her fingers slip just enough that she manages to knock it to the floor.

She winces, already anticipating a lecture from Dawes about _Books; The Proper Care Of_ , and reaches to pick it up. Before she can, though, Darlington’s already kneeling down, handing it to her. The image clicks into place, like a camera coming into focus, and she remembers Halloween, fog, Darlington on his knees, staring at her like she was the center of his orbit. The itching of her skin turns into a burn.

She asks, “Do you remember that night at Manuscript?”

As soon as she says it, she winces. Darlington’s still on his knees, holding the goddamn Brontë book, looking like she’s slammed him in the chest, those dark eyes wide like chasms. His jaw works, and she abruptly remembers how horrified he’d been with himself, how she’d basically promised not to talk about it, and here she fucking is, doing just that. A small betrayal, compared to how she let Darlington slip into a demon’s mouth without moving a muscle, but a betrayal nonetheless.

“Shit,” she says, “shit, I’m sorry Darlington, I – thanks,” and she grabs the book out of his hands before he can say anything and flees.

-

For the next week, Alex is a fucking coward.

She doesn’t go near the study, just stays in her little nook in the kitchen, surrounded by Great English Literature and coffee mugs, only moving to go to bed in the Dante room, which still doesn’t feel like hers. At night, she hears the stairs creak, and she knows it's Darlington heading downstairs, but she doesn’t get up.

She wishes Before-Darlington hadn’t been so fucking chivalric, so goddamn noble. He wanted her but wouldn’t let himself, even though she’d offered, and she had wanted him too, a little, and before it could sit between them for too long she let him get fucking eaten.

She’s never been good for the people she wants. They’re always dying around her.

Unlike Hellie, she got Darlington back, but he’s not the one she remembers, the one she thought she knew how to handle. With this Darlington, Now-Darlington, she doesn’t know if he feels grateful or resentful for what she’s done, and she wouldn’t blame him for either one.

In any case, she has no idea what he thinks, and no idea how to learn. In the meantime, she’ll keep to her own orbit.

-

In the end, its Professor Jenkins who unwittingly jolts her into doing something, if only because she needs a copy of _Northanger Abbey_ , which is catalogued with the rest of the Austen in the second-floor study.

Alex still searches the ground floor, for the sake of thoroughness.

When she can’t procrastinate any longer, she heads upstairs, knocking softly. There’s no answer, and when she opens the door, Darlington isn’t there.

She stands just inside the study, frowning. Of all the scenarios she pictured, she didn’t imagine this one. All that build up, for nothing.

It takes only a minute or two to find the Austen and pull out what she needs. When she turns around, Darlington is there, watching her, and it scares her out of her skin.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” she swears, grabbing the book even tighter. “A little warning?”

Darlington grimaces. “Sorry,” he says quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle.”

Alex lets out a long breath. “It’s okay,” she says, forcing her shoulders to relax. “I was just getting this. Thanks.”

She heads for the door, avoiding his gaze. When she brushes past him, he grabs her wrist. It stops her dead in her tracks.

“Alex,” he says, and she turns to look at him, at those dark eyes, black like pits. His fingers are hot on her wrist, like a brand.

She makes a noise, almost a question; flexes her hand in his grip. He’s staring back, searching her face like an ancient text, like she’ll reveal some long-lost incantation to him.

“I remember what happened,” he starts, then stops. When he swallows, she can hear it. “At Manuscript, and after. I remember it all.”

“Oh,” she says, like an idiot.

He’s still looking at her, the weight of his gaze dragging across her skin. “It’s – I’m not the same person I was before,” he says.

“I know that,” she replies. She does know. If it were Before-Darlington, she would know the next move, the next play. With Now-Darlington, this Darlington, the one who has her wrist in his hand and his eyes on her face, she doesn’t know what will happen. What he’ll do, and what she’ll do in return.

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. “I –“ he stops, sucks in a breath. He looks lost, almost, like he’s gotten to this point and doesn’t know how to go forward.

She’ll have to move forward for them both, then. “What you wanted, then. Do you still want it?” she asks. She jerks her chin at him.

He frowns, looking frustrated. “Alex, I’m not –“

“I heard you. I know you’re not the same,” she replies, cutting him off, ignoring how her name in his mouth makes her stomach flip. “I’m asking, do _you_ want it?”

He stares at her with those dark, dark eyes. It doesn’t matter what color they were before. They’re his now. They’re beautiful now.

“Yes,” he says, voice rasping.

She kisses him. It’s been a while since she’s done that. Kissed someone, she means. There was Len, that shithead, and Hellie, too brief, but she left kissing, sex, all of that behind in LA. At Yale, there’s been too much happening – too much school, too much magic, too much almost dying. She hasn’t had the time.

Here, now, with Darlington, it’s like riding a bike. She leans into his grip on her wrist, lets _Northanger Abbey_ fall to the floor – sorry, Dawes – gets her other hand on his shoulder. It feels soft, almost easy, to kiss him.

Then it’s like a switch flips, and Darlington kisses back like a dying man, which maybe he is. “Alex,” he says against her mouth, and then he lets go of her wrist only to grab her hip, pulling her closer. Where their bodies align, she feels that burn again, like stepping too close to a campfire. “Alex,” he says again, gasping for air before kissing her harder, like her name is an oasis in a desert.

She holds onto his shoulders as hard as she can, digging in her fingers. She doesn’t want to lose him, solid under her hands, soft against her mouth.

Then he starts moving backwards, pulling her along with the hand against her hip. She follows blindly, stumbling over the book on the floor and tripping against his feet. Finally, with a thump, the back of her knees hit something, and she falls into what she now realizes is one of the wingback chairs.

Alex opens her eyes and finds Darlington leaning over her, one hand braced on the arm of the chair, the other going to her face. He looks back at her, searching her face again.

“Darlington,” she says, tugging slightly with the hand still on his shoulder.

He leans in, brushes his mouth against her cheek. She can feel her blood pounding in her ears. “When we were at Manuscript, I wanted –“ He breaks, inhales sharply. His breath is hot against her face. “I went on my knees for you.”

Suddenly her mouth is dry. She swallows, hard.

“Alex,” he says, voice cracking.

“Is that what you want?” she asks. Her own voice sounds shot. She tries to meet his eyes, but his are squeezed shut.

After a long pause, Darlington nods.

Alex swallows again. “Then do that.”

Darlington sucks in a breath, and then he’s kissing her again. Alex wonders if he always kissed like this, like someone who's drowning. She tries to match it, to meet it, sitting up as high as she can with his body over hers in the chair. When she bites his lip, he gasps like he’s been sucker punched.

Then, breaking away with an effort, he drops to his knees, and it’s her turn to feel winded.

Between her knees, Darlington looks up at her with something like reverence, or devotion. It makes Alex’s cheeks burn. “You’re,” he says, eyes roving over her face, her chest, her body. “Shit. _Alex_.”

“Weren’t you,” she says, slightly breathy. His expression makes her nervous all of a sudden, and she has the urge to hide it. “Weren't you going to do something?”

Darlington nods, and runs his hands up her thighs. It makes her shiver. She wishes she hadn’t worn jeans.

When he starts to unbutton her pants, she lifts her hips to help, wriggling slightly so they’ll go past her knees to her ankles. Then his hands are on her thighs, her stomach, rucking up her shirt, and all the while he’s still looking at her like he can’t believe what he sees. Every place he touches leaves burning trails in their wake, until Alex feels hot all over.

After minutes that feels like hours, his fingers tracing over her skin, leaving goosebumps behind, she nudges him with a foot. “Darlington,” she says, voice cracking slightly. “Do something.”

His eyes flick up to hers, one hand reaching up to slide under her bra, the other anchored on her hip, thumb stroking the thin skin. Slowly he leans in, breathes against her bellybutton, kisses the skin right above the elastic.

He pinches her nipple, and she squirms. “Darlington,” she says, hands moving to his shoulders, to his neck.

He still moves so slowly, mouthing over the cheap cotton underwear to where she’s starting to get wet. He pinches her nipple again, huffs when she jerks up. She digs her nails into his shoulder. She’s going to die if nothing happens. She’s going to die if anything happens.

“Darlington,” she says again, wishing she didn’t sound so strangled. Then, “ _Please_.”

Darlington moans, and the sound lights her up like a firecracker. Then, so fast she almost misses it, he’s pushing her underwear down her legs, only to get his hands on her hips, pulling her forward in the chair, almost off balance.

The first swipe of his tongue on her clit makes her gasp. He makes a humming noise at that, right against her clit, and sets something off inside her, a resonant vibration. It’s all she can do not to thrust her hips against his face as his tongue licks circles around her and makes her nerves light up. He teases her like that for a while, quick flicks and circles, just enough pressure to make her stomach grow warm like she’s swallowed some kind of elixir. Almost unconsciously, she’s got one hand on his hair, holding tight, the other on her breast, pushing down the bra they’d never gotten off her.

Then one of Darlington’s hands leaves her hip, and there’s his fingers in her cunt, his mouth sucking on her clit, and fuck, _fuck_.

“Darlington,” and she’s truly breathless now. The noises his mouth and fingers make are obscene, and she thinks she’s getting even wetter. “Fuck. That’s – that’s so good. Keep going.”

He makes a strangled noise at that, which, _oh fuck_ , and fucks his fingers in her a little faster, starts steadily flicking his tongue on her clit in a way that makes her lightheaded. Somewhere in the part of her brain that isn’t whiting out, a few things click.

“Oh,” she says, wrenching her eyes open, just enough to meet his gaze. He’s looking up at her, and the expression is almost enough to send her over the edge. “You – fuck. It’s so good. You’re so good. _Darlington_.”

He crooks his fingers inside her, and the world whites out.

He keeps going even as she shudders to completion, until finally she has to shove his head weakly away. She feels like she’s been wrung out, warm and sore and tired. When she can finally open her eyes again, she sees Darlington looking back, cheek against her thigh. His mouth is red and wet from her.

“That was good,” she tells him, fingers still tangled in his hair. “That was really good.”

Darlington inhales sharply, the back of his neck flushing pink.

“Oh,” Alex replies. “That – that’s a thing, huh?”

“Alex,” he says, voice thready. “Please.”

She thinks for a second about the easiest way to do this, then kicks herself out of her jeans. Once she’s freed herself, she slides herself off the chair, landing on the rug with a thump. Darlington is still on his knees between her legs, and when she looks at him, she can see how hard he is against his pants.

“Get those off,” she says, jerking her chin at his pants. He stands up to do so, strips down faster than Alex thought was really possible, and suddenly she’s looking at Darlington, naked.

“Come here,” she orders again, and he drops back down, landing in front of her again. The rug is probably going to burn her ass and his knees, but she doesn’t really care.

She reaches out, tugs at his shoulders until he’s on his hands and knees over her. He presses his sweaty forehead against hers. She can feel the tip of his nose poking her cheek. When she takes him in hand, he makes another one of those shocked noises that Alex is learning to covet. They make her greedy. She doesn’t want anyone else to hear them.

She goes slowly, fair’s fair, and listens to the little noises he makes, the rapid inhales and the small moans. His arms are trembling from holding himself up, or from her hand on his dick, she can’t tell.

“Alex,” he says as she twists her hand, flicks the head with her thumb. “ _Alex_.”

“Yeah,” she says, and speeds up.

It doesn’t take long, and then Darlington makes another one of those noises and comes in her hand. He sags against her, face sliding until it rests against her neck.

Alex contemplates her hand, still sticky. “A gentleman would’ve provided more warning.”

“Sorry,” Darlington says against her neck, voice rough. “I’ll get something to clean it up.”

“In a while,” Alex says, head thunking back against the base of the chair. Her feet are starting to get cold, but Darlington is warm against her side. There’s the sense of something fragile, and she doesn’t want to break it. “We have time.”

-

When her essay on _Northanger Abbey_ has safely landed in Professor Jenkins’ inbox, Alex stretches and yawns. She takes her coffee to the sink and dumps the dregs, leaving the mug next to the pot. Then, she heads upstairs.

Darlington is in the study, reading something she can’t make out. When she comes in, he looks up. “Did you finish?”

She nods and stretches. “Only one more paper, and then Professor Jenkins can go to hell forever.”

“Maybe not,” Darlington says, voice dry.

“Maybe not,” she agrees. Then, “I thought we could go out for a bit.”

Darlington pauses, then puts his book on the side table. “What do you mean by out?”

Alex gestures to the window. Sunset was half an hour ago, but there’s still some light. “It’s supposed to be clear tonight. We may see stars.”

There’s a pause. Alex waits, trying not to rock on her feet and set off the floorboards.

Finally, Darlington says, “All right.”

It’s been so long since Alex has left Il Bastone that she can’t remember where her shoes are. Once she finds them, she waits by the front door, feeling nervous and trying not to be. When Darlington finally comes downstairs, it’s hard not to feel relief.

“All right,” she says, pushing open the door. “Let’s go.”

As they step outside, the night air is cool on her face. A few steps, and she hears Darlington suck in a breath. They can both see the Gray a block away now, the one staring at a crumbling fence.

“Come on,” she says, reaching out a hand and blindly finding Darlington’s. “It’ll be fine. We had to come out sometime.”

She waits, tense. But then Darlington links their fingers together, matches her grip. They walk away from the Gray, down the street. His hand is warm against hers.


End file.
